“Just wait till I catch you, you little turd!”

I ran down the path as fast as I could, round the tanner’s yard and up towards the Green. William was pounding after me, but the pails slowed him down. My legs had cramps and I’d got a stitch in my side.

I tore round the corner so fast I didn’t even see the Owl Master standing in the shadows until he grabbed me. He clamped his leather-gloved hand across my mouth, and before I knew what was happening, he’d pulled a stinking sack over my head and arms. He tipped me over his shoulder. He was walking fast. My chest was banging hard against him and it hurt. I struggled and kicked, but I couldn’t get free. I heard a heavy door creak open, then he stopped. And he dumped me down on the rushes. I curled up tightly in a ball, too scared to move.

“Here’s the brat, Father.”

“Did you have to bring her like that? You’ve frightened her half to death.”

I heard a man laugh, but it wasn’t a happy laugh. “Doesn’t the Church teach that fear is the beginning of wisdom? Just make sure she does the wise thing, Father. Otherwise, I’ll be having that little chat with the Commissarius about a certain pretty lad of your acquaintance.”

I heard scuffling in the rushes and Father Ulfrid yelped as if someone was hurting him.

“Make no mistake, Father-one way or the other the Aodh is determined to finish that foreign woman tonight, her and her whole house of witches. You will bring her to him, or you will be pleading for death yourself before dawn breaks.”

A door banged with a great hollow echo.

I shrank as I felt fingers tugging the sack off my head.

Father Ulfrid was bending over me. He pulled me to my feet. We were standing inside the church.

“Are you hurt, child?”

I shook my head, my heart pounding in my throat, glancing round to see if the Owl Master was still here, but he wasn’t. I tried to edge towards the door, but Father Ulfrid caught my arm.

“There is nothing to be afraid of, child.” Father Ulfrid knelt down so his face was close to mine. He was sweating, even though it was very cold in the church. “Listen carefully, child. There is something you must do for me. It is very important. Do you know the foreign women that live outside the village?”

I shook my head.

Father Ulfrid frowned impatiently. “Yes, you do. You were taken there when you were ill, remember? The women in grey.”

“I never talked to them, ever.”

“I need you to talk to them now. I want you to go there and ask the woman on the gate if you may speak to the leader, the one they call the Servant Martha. Can you remember that?”

“Mam says I mustn’t go near them, ’cause they take little girls and sell them as slaves across the sea.”

“But you were in their house and they didn’t sell you, did they?”

“Only ’cause Lettice came and rescued me afore they could.”

“Enough of this nonsense.” Father Ulfrid struggled up from his knees and stood over me. I backed away, but he held my shoulders. His hands pinched.

“You were seen talking to the women before you were ill. You took food from them. You know what happens to little girls who tell lies, don’t you?”

He pulled me round and pointed at the wall where demons with bird heads on their chests were poking the screaming sinners into the flames of Hell.

“Now, child, you are to go to the house of women and ask for Servant Martha. When she comes, you are to give her these.”

He pulled something out of his pocket. “Hold out your hands, child.”

I shoved my hands behind my back, scared he was going to hit me with a switch, but he grabbed my wrist and pushed something into it. It was soft, and when I looked down, I saw it was only a lock of curly brown hair, tied up with a piece of torn grey cloth.

Then he took my other hand and pushed a single long feather into it.

“You are to give these to Servant Martha, but you must put one in each of her hands, like I have done to you. Then you must say just one word-choose.”

“Choose what?”

Father Ulfrid shook his head. “Pray you never need to know that, child. Now you go and do exactly what I’ve told you. And if she asks you who sent you, you must say the Owl Masters. You must not mention me, do you understand?”

I didn’t understand. Why did I have to take a stupid feather to that woman? What if she asked me who gave it to me? Father Ulfrid had just said I’d go to Hell if I told lies. The grey woman would get angry if I wouldn’t tell her. I wouldn’t do it. I wouldn’t.

I dropped the feather and the hair and ran towards the door, but it was too heavy. I couldn’t wrench it open before Father Ulfrid caught me. He dragged me back and spun me round to face him.

“If you don’t do exactly what I tell you, the Owl Masters will take you to the top of the church tower and leave you up there alone in the dark for the Owlman. Are you going to do it? Or shall I call them? They’re waiting-”

iF I HAVE NOT RETURNED by midnight, Merchant Martha, gather the other Marthas, and act as God directs your spirits this night. I know you will do what is right for the women.”

Merchant Martha held the candle higher and peered up into my face, frowning as she sought to read what was written there. “You are going to see Osmanna? To try to persuade her to recant?”

I couldn’t answer her. “If I do not return, don’t search for me. Promise me you will not do that or allow anyone else to do it. Your duty is to the women.”

“I know my duty, Servant Martha,” she answered gruffly. “I pray you remember yours.”

As I walked away from her room, I heard her call softly behind me, “God go with you, Servant Martha, and keep you safe.” I was grateful for those words.

I swung myself up onto my horse and urged him forward. The night was still and oddly quiet. I had grown accustomed to the roar of the wind in the trees and the rattling of doors and shutters, but now that the wind had died away the silence was unnerving. Sounds which had been masked before were now magnified-the boom of a bittern crouching somewhere in the reeds, the rustle of the grass as some unseen creature wriggled through it, and the clatter of my horse’s hoofs on the loose stones, a sound which I was sure must have been heard for miles. A sea mist had rolled in across the marshes. A great white curtain hung over the dark fields. Wisps of fog were edging towards me, curling around the horse’s flanks.

At the fork I stopped; the right track led to the village and Osmanna, the left to the forest. I reached into my scrip for two small scraps-a strand of hair and a single feather. I held one in each hand, just as the child had given them to me. “Choose,” she’d said, as if it was a game.

Right hand or left, how could I choose between what I held? They were both as soft and unsubstantial as air. Surely such ethereal fragments could not carry the vastness of eternity upon them? But they did. They say the Archangel Michael, when he holds our souls in his scales balanced between salvation and damnation, weighs our deeds against a single feather. Now those scales were in my hands, swinging between life and death, Heaven and Hell, but for which of us? The choice had been given into my hands. Three of us watched through this night-Osmanna and the Owlman and me. By this time tomorrow, one of us would be dead and one of us would be in Hell in this world or the next. But would any of us be left alive in this cursed valley?

I had failed all the women. I had failed myself. Confiteor Deo omnipotenti, beatae Mariae semper Virgini. But what could I confess? To say mea culpa was not enough. I had failed, yes, but how, how had I failed? What had old Gwenith said? Not names enough for all my sins. And a sin must have a name or it can neither be confessed nor absolved. Merchant Martha was wrong; it was not pride that kept me from returning to Bruges, it was fear that I had committed the greatest sin of all, the one that God will not name and will never forgive.